Ginter goods – case break from Nachos Grande

6082012

I usually get 2 boxes of every new product I buy. This just seems to work out best for me. It gets me much closer to completing a full set, and it gives better chances to pull something pretty good – you’re unlikely to get 2 dud boxes in a row. The lone exception is the flagship Topps (s1, s2, update) products. For those, I only get one box, but I get a HTA jumbo box, which is basically like 1.4 hobby boxes or so.

Well, for Allen & Ginter, I didn’t go that route either. Chris at Nachos Grande hosted a case break, and I was able to get two teams – the Mariners and the Rays – for less than the price of a box. It was a pretty good deal, because – as you’ll see below, my results were comparable to what I would have gotten from a box. The Mariners were the more expensive slot of the two, while the Rays were in the cheapest tier – but they have a decent amount of lower-level hit opportunities. Doing this gave me an outside shot at getting a Griffey autograph – one of the bigger hits from the product. I didn’t get a Griffey auto, but I did pull some great cards. And following Chris’s box break was fun, even for paying attention to the cards that I wasn’t getting. Here’s the “goods”:

First and foremost, I was very happy to get what I consider the best card in this set. The great thing about this case break, Chris only sent singles of your team, and split the other cards up among all other participants. So that made this case break a lot more helpful for us set collectors. I got 61 base cards and 2 SP’s toward my completed set, and a bunch of other inserts and minis as well.

The first thing I’ll show is in my top 3 cards of the set. In fact, I’d dare to say it is my favorite, beating out even Griffey’s card and that of Erin Andrews (yeah, I’m a creep – so what, deal with it).

Rickey is one of my favorite players of all-time, and you can’t beat this shot of him. Old school A’s uniform from his first days with the team. I’m convinced I’ve seen it somewhere else, but I don’t care, it’s a cool shot and it goes well with this year’s Ginter design.

Next up, here’s some more of those 63 cards that whittled down my set “needs list”.

Parseghian is actually a member of my alma mater’s – Miami University’s – “Cradle of Coaches”. He played there in the 1940’s and after an injury derailed his NFL career, started coaching there under Woody Hayes. During his first year as a coach, 1950, Bo Schembechler was actually still a player at Miami.

Here’s some minis – nothing too crazy:

Here’s some insert minis – all ones that I need for the collection…

The Fashionable Ladies is actually a case hit, and I got it randomly due to the fact that the Mariners didn’t get a hit from the case. To be honest, I’m just as happy to get that as a relic (except for maybe if I could have snagged the Federer jersey in the random drawing). I now have one of those and one of the other case hit minis – Guys with Hats.

Next up – the What’s in a Name inserts.

And some of the other inserts – all ones I didn’t pull from my box, so that’s good!

And finally, 3 relics (all Rays). I may throw these up on eBay as one lot. We’ll see – anyone interested in trading for them?